Page 43 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 43

"What the hell was that?” Flynn demanded as he steered us over to an empty booth. I sank down into it, cradling a piteously creeling dragon.

“After,” I ground out, both my head and Glimmer’s jerking up as the innkeeper approached.

“Here we?—”

“Thank you,” I said by way of apology as I snatched the bowl from his hand and placed it before Glimmer.

“Slowly!”

The alarm was clear in Flynn’s voice and he and the innkeeper watched Glimmer with grim fascination as she grabbed a chunk of steak, chewed it cursorily and then swallowed, immediately going back for more. She repeated this over and over, gulping the meat down, until Flynn reached for the bowl, ready to intervene. Her claw slapped down on the bowl, a growl far too large for her small frame trickling from her lips, then from mine. He frowned as he looked at the two of us, but didn’t try to interfere again.

“She’s a ferocious little thing,” the innkeeper said, with a hesitant smile. “Hard to imagine her growing as big as that beastie outside.”

“She will.” Flynn said this with a slow nod, as if he could see something I couldn’t.

“Is there anything else I can get the two of you?”

“A couple of beers and a bowl each of whatever you’ve got simmering away in the kitchen, if you please,” Flynn replied.

“Of course, riders.”

I couldn’t explain, not until Glimmer was halfway through the meat. I could feel the stretch of her belly as if it was my own, my heart rate finally slowing. I wiped a fine sheen of sweat away from my forehead and then met his eyes.

“Did you see it?” I didn’t elaborate further, searching his face for evidence of whether he had or not. He nodded. “And I’m assuming that no strange crystal eggs appeared when you waited out the storm in there?”

He shook his head slowly. I sucked in a long breath, looking up and smiling at the innkeeper as he deposited the tankards on our tables.

“You came at the right time,” he told us. “We’re quiet right now, but we won’t be soon. The lads are about to arrive back from the mines.” He looked from Flynn to me and back again. “It gets pretty raucous when they get here. Work hard, play hard. You know how it goes.”

Flynn snorted and then shook his head.

“You’ve accommodated our strange requests well, innkeeper. We won’t begrudge a group of hard working men their pleasures.”

The man nodded, seeming relieved at that before he turned and went back to his bar.

“Did you hear her?” I asked him. “Was it Zafira? It was a woman’s voice, or a female dragon’s.”

“Not Zafira’s.” Flynn’s reply was short, somewhat strained. He shifted in his seat. “Glacier recognised her as a queen dragon. But he knows Zafira’s voice. All of them do. The queen uses her dragon to communicate with all of the royal dragons when she needs to.”

“But how…?” Ordinary people all knew about the riders, but the ins and outs of their abilities were rarely discussed.

“That’s the difference between a queen and the male dragons,” Flynn told me. “Glacier can talk to any dragon he’s in the vicinity of, but talking to more than one at a time is taxing for him. The queen? She calls them all to her side when she rises to mate, taunting them, challenging them, begging them to…”

He went pale as he described their reality.

“And we’re forced to keep them locked down in the eyrie and wait it out.”

And this would happen again, soon.

“So this is another queen?” I frowned, then straightened up. “How is that possible?”

Tanis. Flynn and I turned to Glimmer as she raised her head from her bowl, a bloody smear marring her golden muzzle. Her colour looked a lot better and she let out a sigh before licking her jaws clean and coming staggering over to me. I collected her up and tucked her against my body. Don’t speak of Tanis, came the message as she snuggled down for sleep.

“What the hell does that mean? Who is—?” Flynn’s throat seemed to seize. He blinked, then coughed when he tried to force it to move, before swallowing hard. He took a long drink from his tankard and started again. “Who the hell is that? There aren’t supposed to be any other queens on the whole of Nevermere. Gods, if Queen Raina got wind of…”

We both stared down at the now sleeping dragon, her little whistles of breath almost comical.

“That’s what she meant,” I said. “We can’t talk about…” I felt a slow tightening in my throat, one that eased off as I changed tack. “About what we saw to anyone. Whoever… that was, they don’t want Zafira, and by extension, the queen, to know.”

The pub filled up quickly after that, as men with skin blackened with coal dust came tramping in, clustering by the bar with a lot of good natured jostling. As they came, so did the performers. Musicians at first, Glimmer sleeping on as the men cheered, calling out for their favourite songs. Some I recognised, some had my eyebrows shooting up at the ribald lyrics. Something about the old queens taking it in every… I blinked and Flynn smiled.

“This isn’t exactly somewhere I’d take a lady when courting,” he explained.

My eyebrows shot up. “Is that what this is?”

His smile was slow and lazy, some of the tension having leached out of both of us after consuming a couple of tankards of ale each. Glimmer had stopped us from talking further and we wouldn’t be able to investigate this until she’d decided to wake up.

“Yes, Pippin, it is.”

I sucked in a breath, feeling a need to respond, even as I scrambled to pull my thoughts together, but it appeared I was going to be relieved of the need to do so by the latest performers approaching the stage.

The men’s collective cheer had Flynn turning around, then looking concerned.

“Perhaps we should be heading back.”

“Why? Glimmer is still sleeping and… Oh.”

She was the source of attention. Pretty in a blowsy way, the woman’s every charm was underscored and emphasised by the makeup she wore, her lips scarlet red, her eyes ringed by a dark line of kohl. But it was her clothing that alerted me to Flynn’s concerns.

I’d been informed that some women were forced to sell their bodies when they had no references or no other skills to use in the job market, but the stories always told of poor abject souls who were used and abused by the brutes who paid them. This woman? Her ‘brutes’ held her hands and escorted her on the stage, pulling away the filmy dressing gown she wore over her costume and disposing of it with a theatrical flair. The men all cheered anew at that. She struck a pose, wearing little other than what should’ve been a nightgown, but could a garment that short and sheer be described as such?

“Pippin, we can?—”

“What is this?” I asked.

This was a side of men I had been protected from, even when I was exiled from the estate. Places like this were men-only spaces, because any woman that stepped within knew exactly what awaited her. But the woman on the stage didn’t act like she was sloping off to the scaffold, awaiting her sentence. She stood on the stage and shifted from seductive pose to seductive pose, to the hoarse sounds of the men’s adulation.

“Not something for a lady’s eyes.”

Flynn got to his feet, ready to escort me out of there, when he was stymied by the band starting up a song.

I knew this one. Whistled by the farm workers as they cut down the ripe wheat stalks, sung as they hauled bales of summer hay away or when they scattered it on the cold ground in winter. ‘The Lay of the Dragon Queen’ was ostensibly a recollection of the old days, when Nevermere was ruled by a queen and her consorts.

How did a historical ballad about the former regime come to be performed by a sex worker and several men? It was a strange thing indeed, but I could understand the logic somewhat. When the first Nithian king ascended to the throne, the ballad was created. To ensure we never forgot the chaos of before. To make clear Queen Gloriana’s failures were made clear.

Of the first people who landed on the shores of Nevermere, it was a woman who was the first to bond with a dragon. A stolen golden egg, perhaps taken for its glimmering shell more than anything, had shocked those people when they found it cracking to reveal a baby dragon. And they were even more stunned when the woman bonded psychically with the wee beast. The experience had excited the others in the landing party, leading them to try something similar with the remaining eggs.

Historians seemed to think the queen who’d laid the eggs had died or been injured, as it was unlikely that the small contingent of the First Men would’ve been able to tackle a full grown queen dragon, particularly a broody one. But from this encounter the first riders were created and, with them, the first human queen.

As Nevermere was conquered and the land was finally carved up into four duchies, the consort of the queen became an issue. Wars were fought over it, each duchy striving to gain dominance over the others via their marriage to the queen, experiencing the satisfaction of their daughters inheriting the throne, until a solution was devised. For peace, one consort would be provided from each duchy, and that’s what was the focus of the song.

As the band played the song, a man with a great roar of a voice sang the bawdy lyrics. And as he did so, the four men who had escorted the woman onto the stage began to approach her.

“Swap sides with me, then, if we can’t leave yet,” Flynn said, looking behind him with a frown.

“Why?” I asked, but I received my answer moments later.

The woman was deposited on a rough stool and then each man moved in. Hands peeled down the straps of her garment, picked up her hands to press kisses to them, tilted her head back to receive more. Two other men dropped down, grasping each of her dainty feet, tossing her simple slippers out into the crowd, men clambering over each other to take possession of them.

“Why? Pippin, surely…” His eyes flicked from the stage and back to me and became thoughtful. “You know what is going to happen, don’t you?’

“Do you?”” My question was sharp now. “Is this something you’ve watched before, with your wing, with your friends?”

I had his focus now, but mine was split, half on him, half on her, on them.

“Yes. Most men would have, if they’re being honest.”

“Why?” I asked again, but I thought I knew. This was a lesson, one that was taught to an extremely receptive audience, because what caught a man’s attention but a hard prick.

Before the Nithian dynasty came into existence there was the time of queens. The Idonians, a line of women that came from the very first queen dragon’s bondmate. The queens had ruled over a peaceful Nevermere for many years until a bloody civil war threatened to destroy our country. Gloriana, that was the name shouted at the stage by the miners, as the chanting chorus of the song came around. Queen Gloriana, that was who the woman on the stage played. Because her escorts now disrobed abruptly, the pace of their movements dictated by the rollicking beat of the song. Naked flesh appeared and Flynn looked around in alarm, then back at me with increasing urgency.

“Pippin—!”

“Shh…”

I held up a hand, watching this crude display with a strange kind of fascination, a humming setting up inside my head, even as Glimmer slept on.

Is this what all conquering heroes did? Turned the achievements of the previous regime into performances a bawd would perform? Cocks were freed and pressed at the ‘Queen Gloriana’ on the stage, the men’s bays growing deeper and more guttural as her small hands clasped each one of them, working one, then the other.

Because that was the message: we’d come to the brink of annihilation, duchy pitted against duchy because of the rule of a weak woman. Her relationships, the same as her mother and her mother before that, were blamed for the schism. Because all other queens before had managed to weld the representatives of the four duchies to their sides, and Gloriana had failed. So she was now remembered in displays like this, to amuse men, while also making mockery of the whole notion of a queen, especially one that had multiple consorts.

“For the sake of the gods, Pippin, this won’t end until she fucks all of them.” His voice was low and tense, his eyes boring into mine as he begged me to understand. “She’s a cautionary tale and entertainment, all rolled into one and I don’t want Glacier to come tearing this place down when these louts realise there’s another woman in the place. They’ll take your presence as permission, not caring for your noble blood or your consent. My dragon will defend you.” A low roar from outside confirmed that. “But I’d prefer not to have to tear our own people limb from limb for an insult to your honour.”

That, that was what broke through the haze in my head, crowding out everything else. I nodded in agreement, shooting him an apologetic look as we quickly stood then hurried towards the door. Despite our speed, as we were leaving I still caught sight of an erect cock pressed against the ‘queen’s’—

“Hold up, riders!” one man called out after us, stumbling out into cool evening air and holding up his tankard in salute to us. “You’ll miss the best part.”

“Have to get back to the keep,” Flynn said, tugging me up and onto Glacier’s back, then tossing down a scatter of coins to distract him and a few others who’d sought to join him. “Have a drink on the king.”

“For the king!” the men cried before launching themselves at the ground.

Don’t talk about Tanis. Don’t talk about what we saw. Don’t mention the assembly, the stone.

Glimmer woke during the flight, perching herself up on the saddle horn as we flew back, her thoughts pulsing at us as soon as she woke.

Why? I shot back, feeling like I had lost something when our minds had fused together. Before she was like a treasured pet, but now? A fierce intelligence raged inside my dragon and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

Soon. The thought she pushed at me was rueful and she peered up at me, as if begging me to understand. You’ll know soon. When the queen rises.

Which queen? I asked. Zafira or Tanis? Or you?

But it appeared I would get no more answers from her. Her mind remained resolutely quiet as we reached the eyrie.

Glacier descended in slow lazy loops, swooping into his den when he got close and then coming to an abrupt stop when he landed on the top.

“Well… That didn’t go to plan.” Flynn looked abashed as he pulled his gloves off. “I thought we might share a lazy afternoon in the sun but…”

“But.”

I smiled as I echoed his words, not sure if I’d change a thing. It’d been delicious, terrifying, nauseating and illuminating in turn. He shook his head and smiled despite himself, stepping closer and taking my hands, Glimmer regarding him steadily as he did so.

“I want to ask if we could do this again, but—” he said.

His fingertips caressed mine, teasing them with his touch before I broke in.

“But you should. It was…” He leaned in closer, as if hanging on my every word. “It was an incomparable outing.”

He snorted at that, but his fingers slotted between mine, tugging me closer, and I went willingly.

“My father would bloody kill me, taking a lady to a bawdy house.”

I could see her cherry red lips right before Flynn darted in, ready to press his to mine, but the memory of the woman didn’t seem to deter me at all. Because that was the thing that the men in that inn, in all of the pubs across Nevermere, didn’t understand.

Women, respectable women, were shepherded through life. From the hands of one man to another, father to husband to grave, we were possessions. But that woman? She made her own coin, could no doubt have her choice of partners to play each of her consorts.

Or could she?

I couldn’t ponder that through right now. I tightened my grip on Flynn’s hands and then moved to meet his mouth with mine.

“Gods, Pippin…”

That’s all the verbal response I got before it was drowned out by a more physical one. I was pressed back into Glacier’s side, the dragon humming, Glimmer with him, as Flynn took my mouth as his and claimed it so very thoroughly.

Pleasure washed through me, a lapping tide that threatened to swell the longer we kissed. Glimmer leapt off my shoulder and onto Glacier as our bodies wedged closer. His hands pulled free, then slid down my spine, moulding me to his body, the stiffness of our leather armour doing nothing to hide his reaction to me. He let out a groan and I did the same as he rocked his hips against mine, a terrible friction starting, replicating the pleasure Ged had shown me, though not entirely. Not enough. But before I could slap my hands down on his hips, a voice interrupted us.

“So that’s where you got to.”

That voice, silken smooth and yet steely, was what had us jerking apart and Glimmer’s snarl let us know exactly who was there. With a raised eyebrow and a smile, Draven took a long look at the two of us, and our hands slowly started to retract away from each other under his sardonic gaze.

“Flynn, your father is at the keep. He’s been waiting there all day. It’s poor form, letting the Duke of Skane sit around all day, waiting for his son to make an appearance.”

“The Duke…”

I pulled my hand totally free of Flynn’s. I’d known he was the son of a nobleman, but I’d never bothered to find out which. Rank, family, they all didn’t matter in the keep, did they? But as I watched the two men stare at each other steadily, I had to wonder if I’d been terribly naive.

“And this saves me a second trip,” Draven informed us, his eyes cooling considerably when they landed on me. “Because the Duke is requesting your presence as well, Lady Pippa.”